St.George Queensland Reds lose to Western Force
The St.George Queensland Reds have lost 40-26 to the Western Force in Round 14 of Vodafone Super Rugby at Suncorp Stadium.
The Reds crossed for four tries but fell short as Force flyhalf Peter Grant kicked his side to victory with a perfect seven from seven with the boot.
In front of 12,040 spectators, the Reds trailed by eight points at half time, crawled their way back into the match via a Stephen Moore double but were forced to play with 14 men twice after Nick Frisby and Eto Nabuli received yellow cards for poor decisions in defence.
Head coach Nick Stiles said: “We can’t sustain 80 minutes of football. We’re happy to do things in spurts and patches but that doesn’t win you football games.
“We’ve got to have the desire to compete for 80 minutes and be ruthless for 80 minutes, doing things for little bits of games doesn’t win you anything.”
Reds captain Samu Kerevi said: “It’s something we’ve got to work on as a group and as individuals.
“We’re all so disappointed with that performance and we’ve got to take responsibility for that as players. It’s us when we get out there. It’s the 23 that get on the field that has to perform.
“We can train as well as we can and say the right words but when we get out on the paddock, we’ve got to put in the 80-minute performance that we speak about all the time. Tonight wasn’t good enough.”
The Reds led the game early, after turning down an early shot at goal to set up an attacking lineout inside the Force 22.
The Reds secured the lineout, carried the ball in centre field before swinging it back to the blindside where Quade Cooper put Duncan Paia’aua over for the first try.
Frisby looked to have scored in the 16th minute but the TMO showed that Peter Grant got across in cover defence to prevent Frisby from putting the ball down.
The Reds had a second try overturned by the TMO after Cooper was ruled offside.
Two penalty goals to Force flyhalf Grant either side of the 30-minute mark saw the Force claim a one-point lead, before extending the lead to 13-5 with a pick-and-drive try to Ross Haylett-Petty on the stroke of half time.
Straight after half time, Frisby split the Force defence on a counter attack, passed to Cooper who found Lukhan Tui looming up the inside. Tui crossed the chalk and Cooper added to extras to close the gap to 13-12.
The Force hit back immediately, securing possession from the kick off and marching down field. Force scrumhalf Michael Ruru appeared to have scored with a dart from the base of the ruck, but his side was instead awarded a penalty try and Reds scrumhalf Frisby was sent to the sin bin for kicking the ball out of his hand.
Grant kicked a penalty goal in the 49th to give the Force a 23-12 lead.
Awarded a penalty 40 metres out, Cooper’s pin-point kick for touch allowed the Reds to set for a lineout five metres out and Moore quickly burrowed his way over.
In the 57th minute, the Reds turned down a shot at goal and hit the lead when Moore dotted down for a double off the back of a well-executed rolling maul play.
The Force reclaimed the lead through a Marcel Brache try and a successful Grant conversion attempt in the 63rd minute.
A try to Tatafu Polota-Nau with just over 10 minutes remaining and a long-range penalty goal to Grant pushed the deficit to 14 points.
The Reds head to Apia, Samoa, tomorrow ahead of next Friday’s match against the Blues. They return to Suncorp stadium on Friday 7 July to host the Brumbies.
St.George Queensland Reds 26 (Duncan Paia’aua, Lukhan Tui, Stephen Moore 2 tries; Quade Cooper 3 cons) defeated by Western Force 40 (Ross Haylett-Petty, Marcel Brache, Tatafu Polota-Nau tries; 1 pen try; Grant 3 cons; Peter Grant 4 pen goals) at Suncorp Stadium on Friday 26 May, 2017.
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